1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to mobile telephones and, more particularly, grouping phone numbers of certain calls in order to facilitate the annunciation of distinctive alerting sounds associated with each group of phone numbers or individual phone numbers.
2. Background Art
Alerting tones are nowadays one of the most popular features of the mobile phone. Different alerting tones are associated with different individuals or parties and are advantageous because the user has an idea of the caller already before seeing the display of the phone. The user can prepare in a suitable way to answering the phone immediately when it starts ringing. The knowledge of the source of the call has become of the utmost importance to these customers.
Furthermore, it is now commonplace for mobile telephones to provide user-adjustable operating characteristics such as the volume of an output signal, the ringing volume, and the generation of tone sequences upon receiving a call from a particular telephone number or from a telephone number stored in such a way that it is grouped with other telephone numbers in a category defined by the user or the vendor of the mobile telephone. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,476 shows a mobile telephone having the capability to define a plurality of groups, each of which includes a plurality of user-adjustable characteristics. Values for individual characteristics may be input and one of the defined groups selected for use in controlling an operation of the mobile telephone, at least partially in accordance with the inputted values of the selected one of the groups. For instance, the characteristics might include sound volume, ringing tone, key tones, warning tones, lights, call transfer, etc. The different groups may constitute xe2x80x9cambient conditionsxe2x80x9d, such as indoors, outdoors, conference/theater, car, personal, etc. Each group has the individual characteristics set appropriately for the given ambient condition. For instance, the ringing tone may be made silent upon selecting the conference/theater group, and the key tones may be set xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d as well.
There is a category or group of phone calls which is the recently-received phone calls which a user would not normally be inclined to include in any such groupings for future reference, because calls to or from these numbers are of a temporary nature and are not likely to be frequently called in the long-term.
It would be nonetheless desirable for the user to be able to distinguish calls from totally unknown sources from calls that have been used recently, but have not been grouped for alerting with distinctive characteristics.
An object of the present invention is to alert the mobile device user that an incoming call is from a group comprising recently made, received or missed calls.
According to a first aspect of the invention, a method for use in a mobile telephone having means for storing phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls, wherein said mobile telephone stores said phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers of said recently made or received phone calls which are removed one or more at a time according to a selected capacity management methodology, said method comprises the steps of associating said stored phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls with a distinctive alerting sound generally indicative of recently made or received phone calls, and sounding said distinctive alerting sound upon receiving a call from one of said phone numbers of recently made or received calls.
Further according to the first aspect of the invention, the method further comprises the step of preventing said step of associating or sounding in a case where said call received from one of said phone numbers of recently made or received calls matches a phone number prestored in said memory by a user.
Still further according to the first aspect of the invention, the method further comprises the step of sounding a distinctive alerting sound indicative of a particular party associated with said phone number prestored in said memory by said user.
Further still according to the first aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is instead indicative of a particular party having an associated phone number selected and prestored in said memory by a user of said mobile telephone.
In further accord with the first aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is separately generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls with recently made calls, recently received calls, and recently missed calls having alerting sounds distinct from each other.
According to a second aspect of the invention, a method for use in a mobile telephone that stores phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers which are removed one or more at a time according to a selected capacity management process, said method comprises the steps of comparing a phone number of an incoming phone call to said recently made or received phone numbers stored in said memory and upon finding a match, sounding a distinctive alerting sound.
Further according to the second aspect of the invention, the mobile telephone also stores phone numbers entered by a user, wherein said method further comprises the step of comparing said phone number of said incoming phone call to said stored phone numbers entered by said user and only sounding said distinctive alerting sound in the absence of a match.
Still further according to the second aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound for recently made calls is distinct from recently received calls.
According to a third aspect of the invention, a method for use in a mobile telephone having means for storing phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls, wherein said mobile telephone stores said phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers of said recently made, received, or missed calls that are removed one or more at a time according to a memory management technique, said method comprises the steps of comparing a phone number of an incoming phone call to said phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls stored in said memory and also to phone numbers stored by a user, and sounding a distinctive alerting sound generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls upon said step of comparing yielding a match between said phone number of said incoming phone call and a phone number of a recently made, received, or missed call stored in said memory except upon said step of comparing also yielding a match between said phone number of said incoming phone call and a phone number stored by the user, in which case said distinctive alerting sound is indicative of a particular party having said phone number stored by the user.
Further according to the third aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is separately generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls with recently made calls, recently received calls, and recently missed calls having alerting sounds distinct from each other.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, a method for use in a mobile telephone having phone numbers stored by a user in groups in a memory with separate sequences of alerting tones associated by the user with each group, comprises the steps of defining a new group for storing a selected number of phone numbers of most recently made or received phone calls in a portion of said memory or in a separate memory having a storage capacity limited by a memory management process to storing a maximum of said selected number of phone numbers, and alerting the user to a received phone call from a phone number presently stored in said portion of said memory or in said separate memory with a distinctive sequence of alerting tones associated with said new group.
Further according to the fourth aspect of the invention, the step of alerting the user to a received phone call is made with a distinctive sequence of alerting tones associated with a group associated with a phone number already stored in said mobile telephone by said user and associated with said group rather than said new group.
Further still according to the fourth aspect of the invention, the new group also includes phone numbers of most recently missed phone calls.
According to a fifth aspect of the invention, a mobile telephone having means for storing phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls, wherein said mobile telephone stores said phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers of said recently made or received phone calls which are removed one or more at a time according to a selected capacity management methodology, said mobile telephone further comprises means for associating said stored phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls with a distinctive alerting sound generally indicative of recently made or received phone calls, and means for sounding said distinctive alerting sound upon receiving a call from one of said phone numbers of recently made or received calls.
Further according to the fifth aspect of the invention, a mobile telephone further comprises means for preventing said step of associating or sounding in a case where said call received from one of said phone numbers of recently made or received calls matches a phone number prestored in said memory by a user.
Further still according to the fifth aspect of the invention, the mobile telephone further comprises means for sounding a distinctive alerting sound indicative of a particular party associated with said phone number prestored in said memory by said user.
Still further according to the fifth aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is instead indicative of a particular party having an associated phone number selected and prestored in said memory by a user of said mobile telephone.
Further still according to the fifth aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is separately generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls with recently made calls, recently received calls, and recently missed calls having alerting sounds distinct from each other.
According to a sixth aspect of the invention, a mobile telephone that stores phone numbers of recently made or received phone calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers which are removed one or more at a time according to a selected capacity management process further comprises means for comparing a phone number of an incoming phone call to said recently made or received phone numbers stored in said memory, and means for sounding a distinctive alerting sound upon finding a match.
Further according to the sixth aspect of the invention, the mobile telephone also stores phone numbers entered by a user, wherein said method further comprises means for comparing said phone number of said incoming phone call to said stored phone numbers entered by said user and only sounding said distinctive alerting sound in the absence of a match.
Further still according to the sixth aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound for recently made calls is distinct from that for recently received calls.
According to a seventh aspect of the invention, a mobile telephone having means for storing phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls, wherein said mobile telephone stores said phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls in a memory having capacity dedicated for only a limited number of phone numbers of said recently made, received, or missed calls that are removed one or more at a time according to a memory management technique, said mobile telephone comprises means for comparing a phone number of an incoming phone call to said phone numbers of recently made, received, or missed calls stored in said memory and also to phone numbers stored by a user, and means for sounding a distinctive alerting sound generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls upon said means for comparing yielding a match between said phone number of said incoming phone call and a phone number of a recently made, received, or missed call stored in said memory except upon said means for comparing also yielding a match between said phone number of said incoming phone call and a phone number stored by the user, in which case said distinctive alerting sound is indicative of a particular party having said phone number stored by the user.
Further according to the seventh aspect of the invention, the distinctive alerting sound is separately generally indicative of recently made, received or missed calls with recently made calls, recently received calls, and recently missed calls having alerting sounds distinct from each other.
According to an eighth aspect of the invention, a mobile telephone having phone numbers stored by a user in groups in a memory with separate sequences of alerting tones associated by the user with each group, comprises means for defining a new group for storing a selected number of phone numbers of most recently made or received phone calls in a portion of said memory or in a separate memory having a storage capacity limited by a memory management process to storing a maximum of said selected number of phone numbers, and means for alerting the user to a received phone call from a phone number presently stored in said portion of said memory or in said separate memory with a distinctive sequence of alerting tones associated with said new group.
Further according to the eighth aspect of the invention, the means for alerting the user to a received phone call provides a distinctive sequence of alerting tones associated with a group associated with a phone number already stored in said mobile telephone by said user and associated with said group rather than said new group.
Further still according to the eighth aspect of the invention, the new group also includes phone numbers of most recently missed phone calls.
This invention further enhances the versatility of the alerting tones and their association to the telephone numbers. The user can define separate alerting tones for the telephone numbers of recently called, received, or missed calls which are not stored in the permanent short code memory (SCM) of the phone. With this feature the user can distinguish the calls coming from totally unknown sources from the ones that have been used recently, but are of a temporary nature. These would typically be the numbers of offices, shops, hospitals, etc., where the user could make or from which the user would receive a few calls during a few days or a couple of weeks, but does not want to store them to the short code memory and define user groups and specific alerting tones for them, because the user does not expect to call them over the long-term future. Still, it would be helpful if calls coming from these recently frequently-used numbers could be distinguished from the other calls by a distinctive alerting sound.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in light of the detailed description of a best mode embodiment thereof, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.